


Panopticon

by Corvid_Knight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meteor fic, Panic Attacks, basically paleporn okay, i was upset, reference to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:54:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15681204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: pan·op·ti·con: noun, historical; a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed.alternate definition: Dave Strider's metaphor for the apartment he spent the first thirteen years of his life in.





	Panopticon

The second that Karkat sits down on the floor next to you you're on him, wrapping your stupid self around his smaller softer _better_ body like a leech, twisting up two fistfuls of thick grey sweater and burying your face in 69-printed fabric so you can take a breath that smells of _him_ instead of the memory of copper and steel. Not that that makes the memory go away. Overrides it a lil', maybe. Gives you a snootful of familiar spicy-sweet alien scent and the faint dusty aroma of the meteor you've been on for awhile and can't leave for awhile more, fights the past back the smallest bit. If it is the past. 

Your cape's tangled up with your feet. Puts pressure on your throat. More bad memories—bad? Yeah, bad, just because he's alive in 'em doesn't fuckin' mean they're good, you can get slammed with guilt and recognize that shit was more-or-less fucked all the time back then. Back then. A hop skip and fuckin' jump from right now. So fuckin' close, you can taste it, blood in your mouth, tastes like metal, tastes like a goddamn _strife_ —

Oh, god, this is a bad one. You didn't know it was gonna be this bad when you messaged him. Shoulda fuckin' known, told him to stay away, not subjected him to this absolute fucking horseshit bullshit useless piece of _shit_!

"Fuck, Dave." Karkat grumbles deep in his throat, not a growl and not words either, trying to pull you up so he can see your face. He stops when you go limp, thank god; he's been through enough of your clusterfucks to understand that you don't resist when it's really bad, _can't_ resist, not unless you want a nice feedback loop that ends with you backed into a corner and incoherent with fear, ready to fight anything that comes anywhere near you. Full fucking Strife Mode. You never want to be like that again. 

Knowing that he knows how to keep you away from that state, it helps and it makes shit worse. He knows because he's _seen,_ after all; it's the most vulnerable you can be, weakest, worst, what kinda Strider are you, to show shit like that to him? Not a Strider at all, the fraction of your mind that belongs to Bro answers back, and the scared tired guilty kid that lives in there fucking _begs_ for that to be true, because that'd mean you're not like this, you wouldo need the fear because he wouldn't be _your_ Bro. 

The rest of your brain tries to drown that thought—drown you—in ugly black guilt. How fucking _dare_ you. How dare you. How dare you. How—

"Dave, stop!" Karkat's voice (loud and shocking and the best fucking thing to bring you out of wherever you go when you're in your head, the fuckin' antithesis of the silence and sharp musical metal-on-metal of the apartment you keep mentally dipping back into, a _now_ sound that helps you sort out what's a _past_ sound) his voice pulls you up and out, makes you realize you're murmuring _how dare you_ in a tone quieter than a whisper, so blurred it's barely words. Just over and over, a goddamn useless litany reminding you that you can't do anything right, you can't, you _can't—_ ,

"Talk to me," he says, asks, tells, demands? no, not demands, Karkat doesn't demand shit, that's a Bro thing, you can dodge what Karkat wants most of the time if you want to. If you need to. He gives you an out, an exit, better than the fire escape, there's no roofs here to flash-step up to and—

"No!"

You scare yourself, with that. You're scared already, but your own voice makes that shit worse, can't breathe, can't think, why the fuck are you making noise you lil' shit, audio pickups and observant puppets and sharp ears hear fuckin' everything and you're in the middle of the panopticon, you're right here and all eyes are on you, you're still and quiet but you shouldn't be trying to _breathe_ —

Oh, god, this is a bad one. Didn't you have that thought already? Fuck, you can't sort out _deja vu_ from the truth of having done this before, time loops and shit you've seen in dreams and inherited memories of dead Daves piled up like plush puppets, like blood-soaked towels. 

Bloody cloth? No, blood in your mouth. Faint; is it a memory or a couple drops from a bitten tongue or a taste from an injury? Your chest hurts. Your head hurts. Your heart hurts, but that's not real. Fucking kid like you doesn't have a heart to break, and who would it break for? The guy you wish either wasn't family or wasn't dead? The guy who's holding you right now? 

Wait. 

Karkat. Karkat's holding you. Rocking gently like you're a baby way the hell up in a treetop, not that you know why someone would stick a kid there, stroking through your hair with the hand that's not attached to the arm wrapped around your shoulders, shushing and crooning and making more alien noises that your body's reacting to even though you don't have the cultural background to understand them. 

Why your body should be soothed by shit from another universe is beyond you. Unless it's not anything deep and meaningful, not some bullshit about resonant frequencies and matching biorhythms but simply the fact that with him you're safe. With Karkat things are less fucked, even when they are fucked beyond all hope of recovery. When _you_ are fucked beyond all hope of recovery. 

Oddly enough, the mental recognition that you are, in this moment, really fucked up, is the second (probably third or fourth) trigger of the day. Starts the waterworks. 

In your head, Bro mutters something about weak-ass baby shit. You're too busy gasping against Karkat's chest and soaking a salty-hot wet patch into his shirt to listen. 

Karkat's still talking, though, and _that_ you can listen to. 

"—okay, that's better. You're okay, Dave. You're going to be okay, remember last time? It wasn't this fucking bad, I know, but we talked about it, figured out what to do next time. This time? Fuck, how do you even handle time shit, when I can't even do the gogdamn _grammar_ for it?"

Before you can force out a witty remark in response to that, he's talking again, just rolling on and on. This is what people mean when they say you ramble, and you totally get it now. Well, except for the part where it's a bad thing. _You_ might be a bad thing, but Karkat's not. He's an angel, heaven wrapped up in five foot nothing of soft grey alien skin, warm arms around you and a not-that-quiet voice just fucking _talking_ , everything about him a lifeline anchoring you to _here_ and _now_. 

Without him you'd be lost. Without him you'd be broken. Gone. Nothing. One more dead Dave, with the lil' added features of a pulse and warm breath in your lungs. 

But you're not without him. You have him. No, Karkat has _you_ , holding on tight and letting you anchor yourself on him, not one word about how disgustingly clingy you are, how you got two handfuls of his shirt and are only now starting to relax enough to let go. Wait, shit, you're relaxing. That's a thing. You're relaxing, and you can breathe again, you can think without sobbing in the center of your head. The panopticon that you visualize panic attacks and paranoia and flashbacks as has dissolved back into the mental mist it builds itself out of.

God, you're tired. But not so tired that you can't squirm up to bump the top of your head against Karkat's chin, let him know the worst of your clusterfuck is over without actually opening your mouth. (You don't want to open your mouth. Like, _really_ don't want to do it. There's sounds inside that you can't bear hearing right now, things in your head that don't deserve passage to the world. The meteor. Whatever) 

He gets you, though. You can tell by the way he sighs, cutting himself off in the middle of a sentence, long and drawn-out and relieved. "Thank fucking gog, Dave. What the fuck set that off?" 

You know the answer, if you think about it. You definitely do. You should tell him. 

You shake your head a teeny bit, shove your face into his chest harder. Not thinking about that. Nope. Not happening. Karkat worked hard to get you to _relatively okay_ ; you won't ruin it. 

He accepts that. You love him for accepting that. 

"Okay, so we'll figure it out later. You're tired, right?" 

Nod. _Emphatic_ nod. This shit exhausts you. He knows it. He's been here for too many of them. 

(Stop with the guilt. Don't do it. He's told you time and again that he wants to be here for you, it's not something you should feel ashamed for calling him in to do. It's okay.) 

(You're now distracted by the _time and again_ thing. Goddamn aspect catching your attention all the goddamn time.) 

( _Time._ Jesus fuck.) 

"You can't sleep on the floor. Well, _you_ can, but I'm sure as fuck not going to. I'm not hot-blooded enough for that shit and you know it. Come on, Strider, let's get you up..." 

Eventually, he'll coax you up to your feet, to the couch or the bed. Hell, if you can't or won't walk after a while of convincing he'll carry you, you know he can and will. He'll lie down with you, cuddle up, snuggle you like a body pillow that's heavy on the _body_ and light on the _pillow_. He'll take care of you, which means you don't have to do anything right now. 

Right now, you're allowed to just cling to Karkat and breathe in his scent.

And that is exactly what you do.


End file.
